Zoot-Suit Murders (10 page)

“S
o you’re Nathan Younger, huh?”

“That’s right.”

“Prove it.”

Younger took out his wallet and passed it up to the Sergeant behind the high desk.

The Sergeant flipped the wallet open, mumbling as he copied information off the driver’s license onto an official release form. “Nathan Younger. Address, 5676 South Spring Street. City and county, LA, LA. Here you go, bud.” The Sergeant pushed Younger’s leather wallet to the desk edge with the point of his pencil like it was a dead brown rat. “You’re the right guy all right.”

“Where is he?”

“Your little pal is coming. We rounded up about eighty of ‘em last night. Usual thing, street fighting. They carry those big clubs sewn into the pants legs of their Zoot suits next to their flies. Sometimes I think the clubs really are supposed to make their girlfriends think they have eighteen-inch hardwood peckers. I guess it takes a lot to impress those little Black Widows how tough you are. The Zoot we got for you had no identification on him when we brought him in. We didn’t send him over to Juvie because he looked over eighteen, so we booked him in here for the night. Lucky you was there on his one phone call or the little Beaner would still be in the stew. I tell you, I think it’s a big mistake letting these young pachuco punks out in the custody of you social workers. They’re nothing but baggy-pants little dandies, Zoot-suit punks. It won’t be long now before Mayor Bowron unties Chief Horell’s hands; then we’ll tackle this disease with real action, not just slaps on the wrist.” The Sergeant jabbed the sharp point of his pencil in the air. “Sit down over there and rest your load, it’s going to be a while.”

Younger followed the direction the Sergeant pointed; he walked through swinging green doors and took a seat in a small waiting room. A solid metal door with a round barred window at the top opened behind him, Cruz was prodded into the center of the room by a guard pressing a billyclub to his back.

“How do you like your little taco-breath baby now, daddy?” The guard winked at Younger.

Cruz’s eyes were on the floor, his head bent as if the thin links of cheap silver-coated chain hanging from his oversized green coat were a burden too heavy for his narrow shoulders to support. He would not raise his eyes to Younger. He still wore his baggy purple Zoot-suit pants, pegged in like toreador pants at the ankles, the wide-brimmed fedora clutched in his shaking hands. The only thing different was that his black hair, usually swept in neat oiled waves to a perfect V at the back of his head, was now cut away; bristling nubs were spotted over the denuded curve of white scalp, nicked with angry red scissor cuts.

The guard touched his club to the top of Cruz’s shaved head
in a grand gesture worthy of a queen beknighting a heroic warrior. “You’ll notice we gave him a white man’s haircut, cut the duck’s ass right off him. We figure it’s his contribution to the war effort. The amount of oil this baby greased his hair up with every morning could lubricate a whole tank battalion for a month. Now he doesn’t have to steal four bits for his yearly haircut.” The guard clicked his heels and spun around. “Bring him by for a fashion lesson anytime, daddy. We aim to please.” He chuckled and pushed out the metal door, letting it clank loudly behind him.

Younger took Cruz’s hat from his trembling hands and set it gently on the boy’s head. Cruz still would not look at him. “Could have been worse, you know.” Younger sighed. “Could have been what you were dishing out to that sailor couple of weeks back.”

Cruz turned his brown eyes up to Younger. There was a watery film across them threatening to break at any moment. “What makes you think they didn’t dish it out?” Cruz spit at the metal door the guard had disappeared through, the wet wad splattering against the small glass window. Cruz’s top lip curled angrily above the soft pink of his gums. “What makes you think you know so much? You Commie coward!”

Younger grabbed the boy around his neck and slammed him against the door with spit dripping down it. “Listen, I’m damn sick and tired of this Commie business. You know better! What the hell, who is it keeps coming down here at all hours of the night to bail you blades out? Huh? Who is it does those things when he knows what you blades are all into? Who gives you money and covers for you with the probation officer?” He pushed Cruz’s chin up with his fist. “I know you blades don’t get a fair shake. You think I’m blind? You think I’m deaf, dumb, and don’t have a pot to shit in? Well, let me tell you something. If it wasn’t for me you would be dead in three days. They would have found out you’re on Horse and put you cold turkey.” Younger felt sick pushing a little kid around, he felt disgusted with himself. He couldn’t look in Cruz’s face; the boy was
trapped, terrified, crying. Younger shoved Cruz down in one of the chairs. What he was going to do next made him want to throw up. He hated himself for it. But there was a war on. “Okay, Cruz, I know I’ve been a little tough with you, but it’s not a pretty picture out there. You know in the end I’m on your side. Now tell me, how much to get you hopped up?”

Cruz looked mockingly into Younger’s eyes. “What? Are you going into the business? You!”

“Nobody can hear us in here. Tell me, how much to connect?”

“What should I tell
you
for?”

“Because I want to make a deal.”

The expression in Cruz’s eyes changed completely. “No shit, you want to talk turkey?”

“I don’t want you to bitch up your life is all. I want to see you get out of the Barrio, get a good job someday. Get married in the Church. Move out to San Fernando Valley and raise a family.”

“Yah, well they’ll give Emperor Hirohito an honorary degree at UCLA before that happens.”

“I’ll give you dough to connect.”

“What’s the catch?”

“That you promise me this is your last time. You’re young, you’re not hooked. You don’t have to bitch up your life; be proud of yourself.”

“I am proud.”

“Baloney. You listen to the Sinarquistas. They tell you to spit on America. They teach you are different people from Anglos, even though you were born here. They tell you they can win here same way they did in Spain. They talk about pride, the cause, La Raza, but they don’t care about that. They only care about defeating the American way. If they really cared for your people so much they wouldn’t have let Horse loose in the Barrio, hooking young kids. Who does that kind of thing? Gangsters. A mobster does that kind of thing, no matter what his politics are. A Hitler does that kind of thing.”

“So you’re
different
? You’re offering me a fix if I’ll play it your way on the square. You’re just like what you say the Sinarquistas are.”

“I’ll give you something more than their empty talk about the glory of the Spanish race.”

“What?”

“In two weeks you’ll be eighteen. Don’t bitch up your life. I’ll get you a job.”

Cruz shook his head. “You must really think I’m some dumb Beaner to go for that. I want a job in the shipyards. That’s where the good money is. You know there are no jobs like that for
batos.
”

“I didn’t say I’d get you a job in the yards. I said I’d get you a
job.
”

Cruz leaned his head back against the wall; his laughter came painfully from his dry throat. “Sure, shoveling horseshit on some rich man’s roses.”

“It’s an honest day’s work. I’ve done it.”

“
Chale.
No dice. I want a factory job.”

“Okay.” Younger nodded his head. “I’ll get you a factory job.”

“You promise?”

“Cruz, have I ever lied to you? I’m a Catholic.”

“Thirty bucks for the Horse then.”

“Thirty bucks for the ride, the
last
ride.” Younger reached into his pocket. “All right, here, thirty bucks.” He handed over the money.

Cruz took the money and began counting as he chuckled. “You sure know how to come up with the bucks, Younger, mon. You got more jack than FDR. How come a
gabacho
like you can always make change for a fifty?”

“I’ve got money because some are born smart,
chico.
Shut up and stash it before the guard comes back.” Younger stammered. He wanted to change the subject fast. “And one other thing—”

“Oh no, Younger, I ain’t going to start dressin’ like no square John. I’m happy being a Zootie. I’m
bute alalba.
Sharp!”

“That’s not what I had in mind.” The skin around Younger’s eyes tightened; his gaze pinned Cruz to the wall. “I want to know your connection.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Are you stupid? You think I’m giving you money for a kick of Horse, then you’re going to go cold turkey for the promise of a job? How am I to know you quit using? If you tell me your connection, that’s the kiss-off. I’ll know you’re on the square.”

“I can’t do that. Besides, it’s never the same person, and it’s always in a different place.”

“Then protect yourself. Don’t tell me who it is,
chico
, just tell me
where
it is.”

“I can’t do that. I’ve got to live in the Barrio.”

“Look, Cruz, I’m no cop, you know that. I just want to see who it is, that’s all. Just see.”

“But if it’s just him and me, he’ll know I squealed. I’m one dead
bato.
”

“Cruz, I give you my word. I’ll just watch. Nothing will happen.”

“You promise the job, no bull?”

“I promise the job.”

“You better not be lying, Younger, mon. You know how many people are in my family. You know my
carnal
Angel doesn’t make enough off his baseball to feed himself, and nobody give him a job.”

“I know.”

“They draft my big brother, Roberto, so he can get killed by Japs on the ocean, but no
batos
can get jobs in shipyards or nothin’. You need something from me, now I get a job. That your big idea of a fat democracy?”

“Nobody said America’s perfect, Cruz, but it’s a free country, that’s what counts. I didn’t promise you I could change the
system for everybody. I’m not Roosevelt, but I can promise you a job.”

Cruz tightened the wad of bills in his fist, jammed them into his pocket, and stood up to leave, his eyes mocking Younger.

“Like they say on the radio, don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

“I
have a dream that when the war is over I can buy a car and drive all the way to the Grand Canyon without stopping.”

Younger sipped at his Coke. The sun pouring through the ghostlike flutter of the curtains behind Kathleen sprayed its golden glow along her slight, relaxed silhouette in the overstuffed chair. He circled his fingers over the cold edge of his glass. “Why don’t you buy a car now? What’s to stop you?”

“What’s to stop me?” Kathleen patted her red curls tenderly as if they were alive and needed attention. “Only the fact, dear Nathan, if I did have a car I could never get enough gas ration cards to travel all the way out there into that vast desert.”

“I know where I can get my hands on some extra A-ration cards. How many would you need?”

“Oh, Nathan, an A-ration card is worth only three gallons a week. I would need at least fifty gallons to make that trip.”

“Impossible.”

“I know.” Kathleen shrugged her shoulders philosophically. “It’s hopeless.”

“What do you want to go all the way out there in the middle of the desert for anyway?”

“Because of the air.” Kathleen straightened up excitedly in the big chair. “Because the air is so good and pure and sweet, and I can breathe it without wheezing. It’s like honey poured all over my lungs and I can just breathe and breathe and breathe it. And there’s something else too.” She looked at Younger suspiciously, the slightest trace of a frown forming on her lips.

“What?”

“You’re such a dear sweet man, you’re so kind to me, so heavenly polite to me. I’m afraid if I tell you this terrible thing about me you will leave and I will never see you again.”

Younger reached out his hand and lightly touched Kathleen’s knee, timidly, patronizingly, like it was the head of a newborn baby he couldn’t believe he was touching. “What would there possibly be about you that could come between our friendship, Kathleen? I’ll accept anything about you at all, anything in the world.” Younger lifted the glass of Coke to his lips and smiled reassuringly at her across the glass rim.

“I smoke marijuana.” She spoke the words softly, her expression of concern not changing.

Younger nearly choked on his Coke. He cleared his throat, trying to speak easily, trying to hide his shock. “Well, Kathleen, that’s a, ah, surprise. Yes.” He clicked the ice in his glass. “Yes, indeed, that’s very original.”

Kathleen clasped her hands together in her lap, her slender fingers worming nervously together. “I’m not a hophead like some people in the Barrio, or anything dreadful like that, and it doesn’t turn me into a monster.”

“Kathleen, I can’t believe you, of all people, would …”

“It’s medicine. My doctor gives it to me for my asthma. Do you know, there’s been considerable research done on the subject in Switzerland at one of the big sanatoriums. The doctors there found it relaxes the lungs, or expands their breathing capacity, or something like that.”

“Does it do that for you?”

“Yes, but …”

“But what? You can trust me.”

“But I’m afraid of it. I’m afraid maybe one time I’ll smoke it and get hopped up and do something crazy like jump out of a window or something.”

“So why continue to use it, if you’re afraid?”

“Because my doctor prescribes it, and it makes me feel,” she turned her eyes away from Younger, “
better.
”

“Well.” Younger cleared his throat again. “No reason to feel ashamed for anything a doctor prescribes to make you feel better.” Younger was irritated with the sound of his voice; it seemed cavalier and phony.

“Nathan, you’re so heavenly kind to me. Can I ask you a very deep favor?”

“I won’t deny you anything, Kathleen, anything.”

“Would you let me smoke it in front of you? I’m afraid to smoke it without someone very close nearby in case something goes wrong.”

“Sure, sure, Kathleen.” Younger sipped nervously at his Coke. “You go ahead and have some if it’s what the doctor ordered. I’m around this kind of thing all the time in the Barrio, part of my job. Even Black Widows smoke it. They don’t do all those crazy things to become Black Widows the papers say, like burning houses and beating up white men, but they do smoke reefers, no denying that. So go ahead, feel free, feel natural about it. I can’t be shocked.”

“Oh, Nathan.” Kathleen stretched her slender fingers out until her bright red nails stroked the sleeve of his coat, softly as water in a stream running over a moss-covered rock. “Thank
you for being so understanding.” She got up and went into the kitchen, opening and closing doors, her voice calling nervously back to him, “Would you like another Coke?”

“No, no thanks. I’m swell.” Younger tried to keep his voice calm and steady. He clamped his eyes shut. He just couldn’t envision someone like Kathleen with a reefer between her bright red lips. It seemed so alien, like a five-year-old child sitting at a bar.

She came out of the kitchen and sat in the overstuffed chair, folding her legs beneath her long dress. The sun was intense behind her, its golden arm coming through the window, running a thousand bright shiny hands intimately over the curves of her body. She puffed tentatively at the tight yellow rolled cigarette held securely in her lips. Younger couldn’t hear her breathing. She was inhaling smoke deep in her lungs. He saw traces of smoke swirl from he nostrils, curling recklessly into the sunlight. Younger breathed easier himself and relaxed back into the chair.

“Bright Angel Rim.”

“What, Kathleen? What was that?”

She turned her head slowly to him and smiled. “You are so
heavenly
kind to me.”

“What about the bright angel? Kathleen, you’re not hallucinating, are you?”

She shook her head, her laughter bubbling around the cigarette. “Dear Nathan, how I wish I could. Bright Angel Rim is along the north side of the Grand Canyon. You can’t imagine on this earth so many colors in one place. Colors more grand and meaningful than all the colors in the rainbow. Intense hues, lighting up the length of the jagged canyon rim like fluttering bright angels swarming suddenly from a crystal clear sky, escaping from an enormous glass jar in the heavens, a bell jar like children catch butterflies in during summer heat. But enormous and clear. All those angels with their gay colors, dazzling life into that vast dark canyon. Five hundred feet down they go, unafraid, along the steep cliffs of the canyon. A thousand feet down they plummet and swirl. So far away they go, but never
lose their color, a million diamonds scattered like dust in a dead universe.”

Younger was alarmed at his own breathing; it almost stopped as Kathleen spoke. He quietly watched her. The intense sun behind her hurt his eyes, but it cast her face in deep shadow. She seemed distant, so far away, way above him. He was on the river bed of her enormous dark canyon, and she was far above him, watching down from the rim, the sun behind setting fire to the red curls flaring wildly around her head like a nest of snakes. He yearned to call her, call to something inside of her, touching her obscure face with his voice. But she was so distant, on the edge of a dangerous precipice, tiny and barely significant, the faint diamond glitter of a fading bright angel.

“Nathan?”

“Yes?” Younger straightened up in the fat chair, his breathing coming normally again.

“Did you hear what I said?” The cigarette was gone from Kathleen’s hand, stamped dead in the ashtray.

“Yes, certainly, all of it.”

“It looked like you were somewhere else.”

Younger laughed and straightened his tie. “Only with the bright angels.”

“I think you’ve been working too hard.” Her lips were very soft in their concern. “I think it would be wonderful if we could both go to the desert, forget this war, live like normal people.”

“Yes, wonderful, swell.” He turned his palms up and laughed. “But like you said, we don’t have the A-cards.”

“No.” Her voice was very sad in the sunlight. “But we could dream about it. We could focus all our vibrations on the war ending and us going to the desert, just the two of us alone in that vastness. There’s mysterious medicine in the desert.”

“What do you mean, Kathleen?”

“My doctor told me the Zuñni Indians out there have a kind of sage plant they smoke in secret rituals. He says it is good for the lungs, better than marijuana even. He says the Zuñnis who smoke it never have any lung problems. But they won’t tell
anybody where they get it. We’d have to hunt for it. Do you think”—her eyes became very excited again as she shifted in the sunlight—“if we found it and smoked it, it would be a crime?”

“No, of course not.” Younger rubbed his lips and laughed. “If it was a crime they would have all the Zuñis in jail.”

“I suppose that’s true, but,” Kathleen’s voice turned sad again, “we could never find it.” She absentmindedly brushed her dress out smooth in her lap.

“Think I might know where we could find something just as good.”

“Nathan, do you really? If we found something, anything, I would never have to smoke marijuana again and be frightened I might do some crazy thing.”

“I know where there is a blue sage, not a sage really, a big lavender bush. The Mexican
brujas
in the Barrio use it to cure people who get pneumonia, make a hot tea out of it. I found it growing last summer by accident.”

“Where is it?”

“On Santa Catalina. I took some of my CYO boys over there last summer and saw it growing in a steep canyon behind Avalon.”

“But we can’t get to Santa Catalina. We don’t own a boat.”

“There’s a ferry.”

“Really? I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s because you don’t go dancing. There’s a ferry goes out to the island every weekend to dance concerts at the Avalon Ballroom; sometimes Harry James’s big band even plays.”

“I don’t have anything against dancing.”

“Well, then, what’s to stop us? Let’s go next weekend.”

“I’m not very good at fast dancing. I don’t have the lungs for it.”

Younger jumped up and beat his chest excitedly like an ape in the middle of the jungle. “Don’t worry, you can lean on me. I’m strong enough for the two of us. I’m sure Harry James won’t mind.”

Kathleen took Younger’s hands and let him pull her up. “You’re not kidding, you promise we’ll go?”

“I always keep my promises.”

“How far is the island?”

“Twenty-six miles across the sea, just like the song says. Twenty-six miles across the sea, San-ta Cat-a-lin-a is awaitin’ for me,
San-ta Cat-a-lin-a, the island of row-mance, row-mance, row-mance
.…” Younger took Kathleen in his arms and danced her around the room to the tune he was singing.

“Nathan, you sit right here.” Kathleen pushed him down into the chair excitedly. “I’ll go get us two more Cokes and we’ll plan the trip all out.”

Younger heard the icebox door open in the kitchen and Kathleen’s happy whistling of the Santa Catalina song before he heard the crash of Coke bottles on the floor. He sprang from the chair, but Kathleen was already staggering back out the kitchen door, her face ghostly white, her hands clutching her chest.

“Kathleen, what is it?”

She pointed back into the kitchen, her words coming up in a dry, empty wheeze; she couldn’t talk.

Younger ran into the kitchen. An enormous bright orange Angora cat was curled on the table, its silky fur fluffed comfortably as it purred up impassively at Younger. Younger grabbed the cat by its tail and flung it out the open window onto the iron bars of the fire escape, then slammed the window shut and ran back into the living room. Kathleen was sprawled in the fat chair, her legs spread carelessly out before her, her eyes wild with fright. Younger barely understood the words gasping from her parched lips.

“In—the—icebox. Get—it.”

Younger opened the door to the icebox. He saw a small plastic bottle with a red spray cap; behind it were several rows of glass vials containing a yellowish fluid, next to them was a hypodermic needle. He grabbed the plastic bottle and read the label: BREATHALATOR. He took the bottle to Kathleen, the dry breath coming from her in frantic waves of wheezing as she put the red
spray cap in her mouth, pressing the bottom of the bottle, drawing short hissing bursts of medicine deep down into her lungs. Younger knelt before her. He felt helpless as she sucked at the bottle, helpless and far away. He was afraid to touch her, to comfort her, afraid it would mysteriously make her condition worse. He waited patiently. Her hand slumped with the empty bottle to her side as she breathed rapidly, the wheezing subsiding until her breath came normally, leaving her paler than ever, almost lifeless in the fat chair. She seemed so pitifully thin. When Younger heard her voice again it was like a miracle.

“You’re so kind.” She extended her weak hand, bent at the wrist.

Younger took her hand. In her wrist he felt her blue veins throbbing. “I didn’t know what in the world to take out of the icebox. I was just hoping it was the right thing, because you couldn’t talk.”

“You did the right thing. The hypodermic syringe is for adrenalin; it relaxes the lungs. If I have a severe asthma attack, worse even than this, I must inject six cc’s in my arm. Otherwise I could die in four minutes. If I’m at death’s door”—Kathleen’s eyes widened at the thought—“I must inject the adrenalin straight to my heart. Sometimes an adrenalin shot to the heart can kill you. Thank God, I haven’t had to use the adrenalin yet, but there’s plenty there just in case.”

“And all because of a cat?”

“Other things too. It’s a terrible way to live. If you are not forever vigilant and get careless, leaving a window open just a crack, or something simple like that, then it can be the end. It’s like living with a loaded gun aimed at your head all the time. You never know when something as dangerous as the neighbor’s cat will slip in.”

Younger stroked her weightless hand. The only sign of life in it was an erratic fluttering of the pulse. “Are you all right now?”

“Yes, dear Nathan.” Her hand came up to his chin, the
lightness of her touch guiding his face closer to hers. “Promise me …” The movement of her pale lips almost touched his.